Migrate from Plain to SurveySparrow Ticket Management with precision & ease

Do I need professional help for this migration?

Yes. Professional help ensures proper field mapping and preservation of relationships between records. Our engineer-led approach catches edge cases that automated tools miss.

Does ClonePartner provide guidance before committing?

Yes. We provide a free consultation and assessment. We'll review your data structure, discuss your requirements, and provide a detailed migration plan and fixed-price quote before you commit to anything.

Do you use an off-the-shelf tool to migrate from Plain to SurveySparrow Ticket Management, or is this built for our data?

It is built for your data. Each migration is a set of custom scripts written for your data model, not a generic import tool. That is also why we start with a sample migration: you see your own records in SurveySparrow Ticket Management before the full migration is committed.

Can we see a sample of our Plain data migrated to SurveySparrow Ticket Management before the full migration runs?

Yes. We run a sample migration on your own data first, so you can review how your records look in SurveySparrow Ticket Management before the full migration goes ahead. We run validation scripts to confirm the record counts match your source, and you check the sample against your source records; if a field is missing or mapped wrong, or anything else needs adjusting, we fix it in the migration scripts and re-run the sample as many times as you need. The full migration only runs after you've approved the sample. On projects delivered in phases, each phase gets its own sample migration for you to approve.

How many sample migrations do we get, and can we choose which Plain tickets go into them?

You can run the sample as many times as you need, until you are satisfied with how the data looks in SurveySparrow Ticket Management. By default it uses your most recent tickets, and you can name specific tickets to include instead, such as ones with long or complex threads you want to check.

Do we need to keep our Plain account active during the migration?

Usually, yes. Keep it active until we confirm the migration is complete, including the final delta migration, because we read your data directly from your Plain account throughout the project. If your subscription is due to end mid-project, extending it to cover the migration window keeps everything on track, and we tell you when it is safe to cancel. If it has to close sooner, we can pull your data out before it closes and migrate from that copy.

Will the sample tickets be removed from SurveySparrow Ticket Management before the full migration runs?

Yes, if you want them removed. Before the full run, we delete the tickets the sample migration created in SurveySparrow Ticket Management, so the full migration does not duplicate them.

Will the original assignees, message authors and created dates be preserved?

Yes. Created-time metadata is carried across, and so are assignees and message authors who have a user account in SurveySparrow Ticket Management. Where SurveySparrow Ticket Management cannot store one of them natively, it is kept as embedded metadata on the migrated record.

If the new system can't natively support an old record type, what are my options?

We handle it case by case. While mapping your data, we identify every record type without a direct counterpart in SurveySparrow Ticket Management, review sample records from it and propose how it can be represented, based on what SurveySparrow Ticket Management supports: map it to the closest native object, create a custom field or object, fold it into the parent record as text or a note, attach it as a file, or keep it in a read-only archive. You choose the approach, we write the migration scripts to place the data there, so it comes across in the form you choose instead of being left behind, and you see how it looks in a sample migration before we run the full set.

Can we still find tickets by their old Plain ticket IDs in SurveySparrow Ticket Management?

Yes. Each migrated ticket keeps its original Plain ID in a Source Ticket ID field, and after the migration we deliver a mapping file that pairs every Plain ticket ID with its new ID in SurveySparrow Ticket Management. Any old ID referenced in past conversations can be traced to the migrated ticket.

Do our Plain ticket attachments come across to SurveySparrow Ticket Management?

Yes. Attachments are migrated along with the ticket conversations they belong to, not just the text. We can also carry over reference fields such as the original ticket number and a link back to Plain, so your team can cross-check any record. You can review attachments and dates in the sample migration before the full run.

Our Plain setup has custom ticket statuses that SurveySparrow Ticket Management doesn't have. How do they get mapped?

We map every Plain status to a status in SurveySparrow Ticket Management and send you a proposed mapping for the ones that need a decision. You confirm or correct it before the full migration, and the sample migration shows exactly how your tickets' statuses land.

Will the migration set off automations or send emails or notifications to customers, our team or anyone else?

No. Before the sample or full migration starts, we confirm with you that nothing in SurveySparrow Ticket Management will send messages about the migrated data: we import with notifications switched off wherever SurveySparrow Ticket Management allows it, and either pause any automation that could send them for the migration window or give it a condition, such as a suppression tag, that skips migrated records, which lets your live automations keep running for new records. We only proceed once you have confirmed it. If you want anyone told about the move, that message is sent separately, once the migrated data has been checked.

Can we migrate only our Plain contacts who have tickets, not our whole contact list?

Yes. We pull your tickets first, collect the distinct requesters from them, and migrate only those contact records. Contacts with no ticket history are not added to SurveySparrow Ticket Management.

Can you migrate data that SurveySparrow Ticket Management can't take in through an API?

In many cases, yes. Where something can't be written through an API, we recreate it through SurveySparrow Ticket Management's user interface where the interface allows it, and where that work is repetitive we script and automate it. We tell you up front which items are handled this way, because recreating them through the interface can add time to the schedule.

If we don't recreate all our Plain custom fields in SurveySparrow Ticket Management, will that data still be kept on our old tickets?

Yes. We can write custom field values onto each migrated ticket as an internal note, laid out as readable field-and-value pairs. Your team can still see that information on every historical ticket, and only the fields you plan to keep using need to be recreated.

Will full Plain ticket conversations come across, or only notes on each ticket?

We migrate the full conversation on each ticket, not a summary saved as notes. Where Plain's API doesn't expose part of the history, our engineers retrieve it from Plain directly and work out a route to load it into SurveySparrow Ticket Management. You check the result in a sample migration before the full run begins.

What happens if SurveySparrow Ticket Management requires fields our Plain data doesn't have?

We check the destination for required fields your source data cannot fill and bring each one to you before those records are migrated. Together we agree how each one is handled, such as a mapping from an existing field, a default value, or, where SurveySparrow Ticket Management lets that field be made optional, setting it to not required for the migration so you can make it required again once the migration is complete. The migration then runs with that rule applied, so no records are rejected or left behind.

What happens if some Plain tickets fail to migrate?

Every ticket that errors is logged. We review it, fix the cause and re-sync it, then validate the result before cutover. When the migration is complete you receive a list of every migrated ticket, so you can check it against Plain.

What happens to Plain comments written by agents who have since left the company?

Their comments migrate with the rest of the ticket history. If the original author does not have an account in SurveySparrow Ticket Management, we can add a line at the start of the comment naming who wrote it, so it stays attributable.

How will we tell migrated records apart from the ones already in SurveySparrow Ticket Management?

We can mark every migrated record in SurveySparrow Ticket Management, for example with a custom checkbox field such as "Migrated from Plain", so your team can tell migrated data apart from records created there. We agree the marker with you during scoping so it fits how your team uses SurveySparrow Ticket Management.

Do internal notes and system-generated notes from Plain migrate to SurveySparrow Ticket Management, or only customer-facing replies?

Internal notes can come across, and so can system-generated notes where Plain's API makes them available. During scoping you choose which notes to include, so SurveySparrow Ticket Management holds the history your team will actually use.

Can you assign migrated tickets to SurveySparrow Ticket Management groups based on the email address they were sent to?

Yes, where Plain's API shows which address each ticket was sent to and SurveySparrow Ticket Management's API lets us set each ticket's group. Routing rules like "every ticket sent to this address goes to that group" are written into the migration script, so tickets arrive in SurveySparrow Ticket Management already in the right groups. You confirm the rules with us up front and check the result on the sample migration before the full run.

Can you map our Plain ticket categories or field values to different ones in SurveySparrow Ticket Management?

Yes. You give us the mapping, including what blank values should become, and we apply it in the migration script so every ticket arrives in SurveySparrow Ticket Management with the new values. You check the mapping on the sample migration before the full run.

Can we keep spam and sales emails out of SurveySparrow Ticket Management?

Yes. We agree filtering rules with you up front so spam and sales emails are excluded rather than imported. Afterwards you receive a list of every ticket we pulled from Plain, with excluded tickets marked as skipped.

Will emojis and special characters in our Plain tickets come through correctly in SurveySparrow Ticket Management?

Yes, as long as SurveySparrow Ticket Management can store them. Our scripts carry emojis and special characters across intact, and we can clean out stray encoding characters left behind in older tickets before anything is written to SurveySparrow Ticket Management. You can check the result in the sample migration before the full run.

Can you migrate hundreds of thousands of Plain tickets and contacts to SurveySparrow Ticket Management?

Yes. Every migration is a custom script built for your project, so volume is something we plan for, not a limit on what can move. At large volumes, run time is set mainly by how fast Plain's and SurveySparrow Ticket Management's APIs accept requests, and we plan the full run around that. Before the full run, we test the mapping and throughput with a sample migration.

We use a lot of custom fields in Plain. Can you map them to SurveySparrow Ticket Management?

Where SurveySparrow Ticket Management has a place for them, yes. Each migration is a custom script written for your project, so your custom fields and structure are mapped to SurveySparrow Ticket Management's model rather than forced through an import template. Where field types differ, such as a value stored as text in Plain that SurveySparrow Ticket Management needs as a number, the script converts it. We agree the mapping with you and prove it on a sample migration before the full run.

Can you combine data from Plain and other support tools into one SurveySparrow Ticket Management account?

Yes. Each tool's data is extracted separately and written into the same SurveySparrow Ticket Management account. How records from the different tools fit together is settled in the data mapping before the build. The sample migration includes data from every source, so you can check the combined result before the full run.

Will our Plain ticket formatting, including HTML content, carry over to SurveySparrow Ticket Management?

Yes. The migration script converts ticket content, including HTML, into the format SurveySparrow Ticket Management expects, and our verification checks compare migrated tickets with the originals, including how the HTML renders. The sample migration lets you compare migrated tickets side by side with the originals before the full run, and if anything renders differently, such as HTML appearing as raw text, we adjust the script and re-run the samples until you sign off.

Our Plain account already holds tickets imported from an earlier migration. Will that cause problems when we migrate to SurveySparrow Ticket Management?

It can make the number of tickets we pull differ from the count Plain shows, so tell us about the earlier import during scoping. We compare those two numbers before the full run, so if earlier-imported history makes them differ, we find out why first. When the migration is complete, the reconciliation report accounts for every ticket.

Are deleted Plain tickets included in the migration?

Only if you want them. You decide during scoping whether deleted and spam tickets are included, and we apply that choice to every run, including the final delta sync. Some platforms keep deleted tickets as scrubbed records with no remaining content; we flag any we find and migrate them only if you ask.

Will Plain tickets that have no customer email address, or whose contact can't be found, still be migrated to SurveySparrow Ticket Management?

Yes, if you want them. We look the contact up again before leaving any ticket behind: when a ticket can't be linked to its contact on the first pass, we run a second lookup, also checking elsewhere in the ticket's data, and attach the requester before the ticket is migrated. Some help desks need an email address or telephone number to create the customer a ticket belongs to, so we flag every ticket whose requester still has neither, including where Plain's privacy settings hide the email from its API, and send you the list. You can then give us the right email for each requester, or have the tickets migrated with placeholder email addresses, and we migrate them that way.

Can you migrate Plain tickets that belong to private or restricted categories?

Yes, once the migration's connection can reach them. If a category or group is private or restricted in Plain or SurveySparrow Ticket Management, the account we connect with may not be able to read or create tickets in it, so we flag every ticket this affects. You can then lift the restriction or give the connection the access it needs, such as an admin-level account, and we migrate the remaining tickets, or tell us to leave them out.

If we have Facebook and Instagram comments in Plain, will they keep the right author and show where they came from in SurveySparrow Ticket Management?

Yes, as far as Plain records it. Each message is attributed to the author Plain's API reports, and messages from your team show under the right agent as long as that agent's account exists in SurveySparrow Ticket Management before the tickets are migrated; otherwise they fall back to the default agent. We also carry over the message source in as much detail as the API provides, for example telling comments on Instagram posts apart from comments on Instagram ads.

Can you also migrate email threads from our email account, such as Gmail, that never became tickets in Plain?

Yes. Once your email account, such as Gmail, is connected, we can pull selected email threads directly from it, for example for a date range you choose, and migrate them into SurveySparrow Ticket Management as tickets. We share the list of threads with you to confirm before anything moves. Because they were never tickets, some details can look different from tickets migrated from Plain.

Will Plain tickets that have no messages or comments still be migrated to SurveySparrow Ticket Management?

Yes, if you want them. Some help desks can't create a ticket without at least one message, so we flag every ticket that has none and send you the list rather than skipping them silently. We first check whether the content is stored elsewhere in Plain, such as a ticket description we can use as the first message. Otherwise we can migrate the ticket with a placeholder message, or leave it out if you prefer.

Do you download attachments for every Plain ticket, or only for the tickets being migrated?

It depends on the source platform. For some sources, our scripts fetch attachments at the time each ticket is migrated rather than during the initial data pull, so files are downloaded only for the tickets in scope. For others, attachments are pulled along with the initial data. Either way, only the tickets you choose are migrated.

Will a customer in Plain with several email addresses or telephone numbers end up as duplicate contacts in SurveySparrow Ticket Management?

Not if we agree the merges with you first. We identify records that share an email address or telephone number and propose merges in the migration checklist, where you confirm each one and choose which address stays primary. Each merged set becomes one contact holding all of that customer's tickets and, where SurveySparrow Ticket Management allows it, all of their email addresses. We don't merge on a guess, so records you don't confirm stay as they are.

Will our customers be able to see their migrated conversations in SurveySparrow Ticket Management, for example in a customer portal?

It depends on SurveySparrow Ticket Management. Migrated tickets are attached to each customer's contact record like any other ticket, so where SurveySparrow Ticket Management has a portal that shows customers their own tickets, the migrated ones can appear there, while internal notes stay private to your agents. Some portals only show tickets or replies set up in a particular way, so we confirm during scoping how imported tickets show to customers in SurveySparrow Ticket Management and check it in the sample migration.

Will the information that integrations show in our Plain tickets be migrated to SurveySparrow Ticket Management?

Not if that information lives in the integration rather than in Plain. Widgets and similar panels are often drawn live by the integration, and where Plain doesn't store that data or return it through its API, it can't be migrated with the tickets. The tickets and their conversations migrate as normal, and your team reconnects each integration to SurveySparrow Ticket Management after cutover.

How long does the Plain to SurveySparrow Ticket Management migration take?

Most migrations complete within 1–5 business days, depending on data volume and complexity; very large migrations, such as several hundred thousand records, take longer. We provide a detailed timeline after the initial assessment and can often complete small migrations in under 24 hours.

Will there be downtime when migrating from Plain to SurveySparrow Ticket Management?

No. Our migration process is designed for zero downtime. Plain stays fully operational throughout: the bulk migration runs in the background and the cutover is fast, so there is no disruption to your live business operations.

Can we choose which Plain tickets move to SurveySparrow Ticket Management first, such as active tickets before the backlog?

Yes, either way round. With a hard go-live date, we can migrate open and active tickets first, so your team can work in SurveySparrow Ticket Management from go-live day; a delta migration on that date brings across every ticket created or updated since the first pass, and the historical backlog then keeps migrating in the background. Or closed tickets can move first while your team keeps working open tickets in Plain, with open tickets moving in a separate delta run close to switchover, so active conversations are the last data to transfer.

Our team has already started working in SurveySparrow Ticket Management. Can we still migrate our Plain history?

Yes. We take the exact date, time and time zone your team went live as the cutoff, and migrate the history up to that point, so the work already done in SurveySparrow Ticket Management is left as it is. That go-live moment separates the two systems' records, so we confirm it with you before anything runs.

Can we leave Plain attachments out of the migration to finish it faster?

Yes. Attachments are transferred file by file, so excluding them from historical tickets, or from tickets older than a cutoff date you choose, shortens the run considerably. Before you decide, we give you a revised completion estimate for each option so you can weigh the time saved against what you keep.

What is a delta sync, and when does it run before we switch to SurveySparrow Ticket Management?

Moving tickets through the platforms' APIs takes time, so we migrate the bulk of your history, mainly closed tickets, well before your switchover date. A delta sync then brings across everything created or updated in Plain since the previous pass of the migration. The final delta sync runs at your switchover time, so SurveySparrow Ticket Management is current on the day your team starts using it: you share your switchover date, time and time zone, giving us about a week's notice, and we schedule it around that. Timing it to the cutover matters, because a sync run after your team is already working in SurveySparrow Ticket Management can create duplicate records.

How long does it take to export a very large ticket history from Plain?

Extraction time depends on volume: a history of more than half a million tickets can take several days to pull. Your Plain account needs to stay active until extraction is finished, so we confirm its end date with you at the start and plan the schedule around it.

Can we run more than one delta migration to SurveySparrow Ticket Management, moving only tickets that changed since the last round?

Yes, when your cutover plan needs more than one. Each round picks up only the tickets created or changed since the previous round and is checked against what earlier rounds already migrated, so no ticket is created twice. Your agents keep working in Plain until you switch over.

Can we change fields or settings in Plain or SurveySparrow Ticket Management while the migration is running, and is there anything we should switch off?

Mostly yes, and your team can keep working as normal, but leave the fields being migrated as they are, in Plain and SurveySparrow Ticket Management, until the migration, including the final delta, is complete. The field mappings are set before the run starts, so hold off on renaming or removing those fields, and changing a migrated field's options, archiving it, or marking it as required or conditional can stop records from migrating. Where needed, and as agreed with you, we set the matching fields in SurveySparrow Ticket Management to active, not required and not conditional for the duration of the migration. Other fields can be added or removed in the meantime. Also pause any AI agents, automations or rules in SurveySparrow Ticket Management that could act on migrated records, so they don't fire on historical records as they arrive; if some must keep running for live work, we can instead agree a condition that makes them skip migrated records. Once the migration is complete, you can switch them back on, restore those field settings and rename fields freely.

Can we whitelist a single IP instead of opening our network to your migration tool?

Yes. All migration traffic runs through a centralized system using one fixed IP, which your IT team can whitelist instead of opening broader network access.

Is migration pricing a flat fee, or does it scale with data volume?

It's a flat fee with no hidden costs. The price we agree with you for your scope is the price you pay, and small variances in the final volume, a bit more or less, are included.

How do I validate that everything migrated correctly?

Every client receives a Migration Validation Report with comprehensive metrics including record-count comparison, attachment integrity verification via checksum, and full audit logs of the migration run, showing every record created, skipped or failed. If any item didn't come across, the report names each one, the specific reason, and how to bring it across if you want it there. We also offer unlimited sample migrations, so you can check your data before the full migration runs.

What support do you provide after the migration goes live?

At ClonePartner, we consider ourselves your partners in this journey. We take full accountability for your migration's success. Once your migration goes live, we provide 30 days of comprehensive post-migration support as standard, and longer support, such as 60 or 90 days, can be agreed for your project. During this period, we help with anything related to your migrated data, so your migration is a complete success.

Will we get a migration report and a mapping sheet linking old record IDs to new ones?

Yes. We provide a comprehensive migration report along with an ID-mapping sheet that links each old Plain record ID to its new ID in SurveySparrow Ticket Management. This ensures full traceability, simplifies post-migration verification, and helps your team validate that records have been migrated accurately.

After migration, do I contact ClonePartner or the platform's own support if something looks wrong?

ClonePartner is the contact for anything about the migrated data itself. Questions about the platform itself, such as how its features and settings work, go to the platform's own support or to whoever administers it for you.

Can we keep an offline archive of our old Plain data?

Yes. The archive is delivered to you as a set of local files: folders holding the ticket data and attachments, plus an HTML file that reads from those folders so you can browse tickets in a web browser. Nothing is hosted on our servers and there is no software to install, so you can store it wherever suits you, such as Google Drive or Box.

Can you keep our CRM updated with support activity after we move from Plain to SurveySparrow Ticket Management?

Yes, where SurveySparrow Ticket Management's API makes that activity available. We build an ongoing sync on SurveySparrow Ticket Management's and your CRM's APIs that writes support activity to the right contacts and companies, and you decide what gets logged. It is a separate piece of work from the migration, scoped and priced on its own.

What if we later want Plain tickets we chose to leave out of the migration?

Tell us which tickets you want added, for example by status, and we migrate them in a follow-up run. We can also share a list of every excluded ticket so you can review exactly what was left out. After the follow-up, you get a list matching each original ticket to its new ticket ID and URL, so your team can find it straight away.

Can a ticket migrated from Plain be reopened later in SurveySparrow Ticket Management if a customer or agent needs it?

It depends on SurveySparrow Ticket Management and on the status the ticket arrives with. You choose the status migrated tickets come in with, such as closed for old history, and if you later want tickets set differently we can update them in bulk. Whether an agent can reopen a ticket that arrived closed, or move it from an archive area back into a live one, depends on how SurveySparrow Ticket Management handles closed tickets, so we check that with you during scoping and can test it on a sample ticket before go-live.